some thoughts on writing modern china and rockefeller

R O C K E F E L L E R A R C H I V E C E N T E R R E S E A R C H R E P O R T S

Some thoughts on

writing Modern China

and Rockefeller

Foundation (1913-1966)

by Hu Cheng

Nanjing University

© 2019 by Hu Cheng

2 R A C R E S E A R C H R E P O R T S

Abstract

With generous financial support provided by the Rockefeller Archive Center,

I was able to pay a research visit to Rockefeller Archive Center from July 20

to September 7, 2018. This was my second visit to the Center, following one

in 2008, when the Center granted and financially supported my one-month-

long access to its archival resources. This second visit proved to be an

important one. This time I took advantage of the fact that the Center now

allows archive users to take photographs. As a result, I was able to proceed

with my work efficiently and made extensive use of archival material which I

missed in my previous visit. This report presents a description of the

important historical materials I have viewed and collected during this visit.

It includes seven subjects in general, described as follows, that together

constitute my research project, Modern China and Rockefeller Foundation

(1913-1966).

I. The 1908 -1909 Oriental Education

Commission

In 1908, five years before the establishment of the Rockefeller Foundation

(RF), Rockefeller agreed to send a commission to the Far East to inspect

education, headed by Edward D. Burton, Professor of Theology from the

University of Chicago. Burton and other educators in the delegation hoped to

find opportunities for philanthropic activities in the realm of education. In

the archives, I have found several letters between Burton and Rockefeller

family advisor Frederick Gates, providing information on their thoughts

about and plans for future philanthropic educational enterprises in China.1

Before arriving in China, Burton had visited Turkey, Egypt, Japan and Korea.

In China, Burton and his group surveyed medical education and social

developments in Shanghai, Beijing, Changsha, Wuhan and Nanjing. Their

visits were welcomed by many Chinese officials, elites and local communities.

Upon returning to the United States in 1910, the commissioners submitted a

report on their trip, which specifically mentioned the “need and opportunity”

of China for Rockefeller philanthropic attention in education.2

3

What did Burton and the other commissioners understand to be “China’s

needs” at that time? And from their perspective, what actually belonged as

part of Rockefeller philanthropic opportunities? In order to address these

two questions, I believe that we should think about social structures and

development in both China and the United States, or think even more

broadly, by adopting a global perspective. China at the beginning of the

twentieth century, was undergoing an “educational awakening”—a

modernizing process that was contemporary with and related to those in

other non-Western countries, such as Egypt, India, Turkey, and especially

Japan. Not only were the Chinese government and the elites highly

enthusiastic about modernizing education, but also Western medicine had

already been introduced to China through missionary medicine since 1850s.

These factors provided favorable conditions for the RF to realize its ideal of

promoting “the well-being of mankind.”3

II. The Chinese Faculty of PUMC

The China Medical Board and Peking Union Medicine College (hereinafter

referred to as CMB and PUMC) were two of the largest philanthropic

endeavors by the RF for overseas medical education. Upon the initiation of

the project, the RF made clear that its purpose was not to create a permanent

foreign institution in China, but to transform the college gradually into a

Chinese medical center, staffed by Chinese professionals and completely

controlled by a Chinese board of trustees.4

The results of this policy did not take long to emerge. In 1920, nine members

of a teaching staff of thirty-one, 29 percent of the total, were Chinese, and

this percentage rose significantly to 53 percent in October 1925. Perhaps even

more significant was the fact that Chinese doctors directed two departments.

One of the most important posts in the entire institution, that of medical

superintendent of the hospital, was efficiently filled by a capable Chinese

doctor. The caliber of the Chinese faculty was deemed equal to that of its

Western counterparts. A young Chinese doctor, Robert Kho-Seng Lim (Lin

Kesheng, 1897 – 1969), who was offered the top post of a department,


declared, "If this offer is made because of my ability as a scientist, I accept,

but if promotion is proposed because I am a Chinese, I must decline."5

More significant developments followed: the ratio of Chinese staff to foreign

staff in 1936 was 102/22, with a ratio 5/8 for professorship and a ratio of 10/3

for associate professorship, compared to the ratios of 6/22, 0/8 and 0/3

respectively in 1920; At the time of the resumption of the PUMC after the end

of the Pacific War, Chinese professors formed a dominant percentage in all

professors while foreign professors only accounted for 7.5 percent. 6

In order to depict a process of increasing “Chinese-ness” of the PUMC and to

shed light on the implications of these developments for the modernization

of Chinese medical education, I paid special attention to the archival

materials on Chinese faculty. At the RAC, I found abundant archival

materials: besides some on Robert Kho-Seng Lim, there was documentation

concerning Wu Hsien (Wu Xian, 1893 – 1959), Ko-Kuei Chen (Chen Kehui,

1898- 1988), and a group of medical professionals who played important

roles in the nationalization of PUMC in the 1950s, including Liu Shih-hao

(Liu Shihao, 1900-1974), Chang Hsiao-ch'ien (Zhang Xiaoqian, 1897 – 1987),

Feng Lan-Chou (Feng Lanzhou) , 1903-1972) , and Kha-Ti Lim (Lin Qiaozhi,

1901 – 1983). 7 I plan to look at the medical trainings these Chinese

professionals received at the PUMC, their education abroad, as well as the

roles they played at the PUMC.

III. The Hookworm Campaign in China

From 1910, the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission launched campaigns to

eradicate hookworm in the southern United States. The Director for the East,

Dr. Heiser, traveled to China in the spring of 1907 to carry out investigations,

and he found that the infection rate of hookworm in central China was very

high. An extreme case, in the Ping Hsiang region of Jiangxi Province, nearly

80 percent of tens of thousands of coal miners in the largest coal mine in

China, suffered from hookworm.8

5

One year before Dr. Heiser’s project, Dr. Fu Ching Yen (Yan Fuqing, 1882-

1970, who graduated in June 1909 as a Doctor of Medicine of Yale

University’s medical school and subsequently worked at Hunan-Yale Medical

School) had conducted an epidemic survey of this area in 1906. He made

efforts to prevent and treat infectious diseases, and had even applied to the

International Health Commission (IHC) for aid. With funds received from

the IHC in 1918, Yen summoned a medical team to Ping Hsiang and launched

a four-year investigation and prevention campaign that involved more than

120,000 local people.

In To Cast Out Disease: A History of the International Health Division of

the Rockefeller Foundation (1913–1951), John Farley describes the

hookworm campaigns launched by the International Health Board in many

countries including Puerto Rico, British Guiana, India, and Ceylon (Chapter

“Retreat from Hookworm (1920-1930)” pp.75-88). It is regrettable that his

excellent work makes little mention of the project in China in the same period

as an essential part of the worldwide program. Therefore, my work will

discuss the developments IHB/D made in China during that period, and

compare them with those in other regions (Puerto Rico, British Guiana,

India, and Ceylon, etc.).

IV. “PUMC Standards” and CMB

From 1917 to 1949, the CMB had built and managed the PUMC, modeled on

the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM). By1950, when

the Chinese Communist Party decided to nationalize PUMC, (except for four

years of forced closure by the Japanese due to the outbreak of the Pacific

War), PUMC only provided 300 graduates, 200 nurses, and more than 1,000

visiting doctors for the Chinese society. According to the communist

government, the elite medical education of the Republican era was too

inefficient to fulfill needs. There was only one trained professional doctor per

100,000 of the population, with almost no decent hospitals in rural and

inland provinces, and the number of medical doctors and nurses trained by

PUMC was the equivalent of a drop in the bucket in a desert. It simply could

not provide the minimum medical services for ordinary Chinese.


After 1949, the communist government stressed that medicine must serve

the poor people. It proclaimed that medical colleges must lower their

professional standards in order to train more doctors and nurses who were

able and also willing to be relocated to rural areas to serve the people. It

politically labeled the old system as "PUMC standards,” based on the

JHUSOM’s model as US imperialism’s "cultural aggression." The

government denounced and purged the "old PUMC" professors who had

been adhering to these standards.

Some "old PUMC" professors, who lost their work in Beijing, were expelled

to the inland and poorest provinces for “discipline and punishment”. For a

more detailed description, please see my paper "The Persistent ‘Old Peking

Union Medical College ‘in the Mao Era”, Journal of American-East

Relations, 25, 2018, pp. 235-262.

Although the RAC ‘s archival holdings do not include any significant material

from the post-1949 PUMC, I found some documents touching on "PUMC

standards" before 1949. With this documentation, I found out that, as early

as 1915, when an RF commission, which included William Henry Welch,

visited Peking, Chinese officials advised that the RF’s money should be

invested more in supporting medical colleges in Changsha and Jinan, rather

than in building a top medical college in Peking. The officials maintained that

their recommendation were related to strategies for promotion of democracy

in China — a Peking-based medical college must wait until the basic living

standards of the people had been improved and the education had been

improved; in any case, the best-trained professional doctors would give little

relief to a disease-ridden, poor and backward China.9

However, Roger S. Greene, Acting Director (1927-1935) of PUMC, aired a

different opinion. Insisting on adhering to the standards in running the

college, he said:

We believe that highly trained Chinese could do much more for

their country than any foreigners, and furthermore it has been

demonstrated that it is difficult for Chinese who have remained

7

abroad for a long time to exert a powerful influence in their own

county. If we kept Chinese doctors in foreign countries long enough

after graduation to fit them for real leadership, they would be

denationalized when they returned. For these reasons a high grade

school in China seemed to us necessary and all our experience of the

last few years tends to make us believe that this decision was right,

especially when we consider the service which the college is

rendering in carrying further the training of both foreign and

Chinese medical graduates from abroad.”10

I am interested in describing such a historical trajectory of professional

education, from the beginning of PUMC's founding to the 1950s, after the

Communist Party's nationalization, and disclosing the link between "PUMC

standards," the structure of the Chinese society, and nation-state politics.

V. The “China Program” (1930s)

Selskar Gunn, who worked for International Health Division, traveled to

China in 1931 to assess the RF’s work there. While in China, he met Jimmy

Yen (Yangchu Yan, 1890-1990), a pioneer in mass education and leader of

the Rural Reconstruction Movement, which was also the work That the RF’s

John Black Grant has already done. After making several trips to China,

Gunn wrote a report that proposed a coordinated program of basic education,

health, and economic development. He believed that the RF should allocate

financial resources to fund the training of personnel in sectors crucial to

China's modern development such as agriculture, education and health care.

He persistently lobbied the foundation to achieve this goal. As a result, the

IHD eventually launched the “China Program,” starting in 1935.11

Since there has been some scholarly attention to the Rural Reconstruction

Movement, I will focus instead on how the IHD supported the applied

sciences of some universities. A few Chinese universities received IHD

financial support, providing funding to one or several of their departments.

Among these universities were Nanking University (Agronomy), Nankai

University (Economics), Yenching University (Sociology and Biology), and

Tsinghua University (Physics, Chemistry and Biology).12 By looking at this

historical process, I plan on exploring further how these universities strived


for and utilized the grants from “the China Program”, and how this affected

their development.

VI. The “China Program” after the

Outbreak of Second Sino-Japanese War

In 1938, the Japanese army occupied Nanjing, Zhejiang, Shandong and

Peiping and the Chinese national universities located in these areas, which

had previously received grants from the CMB and the IHD, moved to

Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan Provinces in Southwestern China—a large

frontier region that had not previously been covered by the RF’s programs.

In this region temporarily free of wars, these universities carried on their

teaching and learning as usual. Until the end of the war in 1945, the “China

Program” of the IHD and the CMB had been continuously providing grants

for these universities as they did during the prewar period, and provided

funding for some local universities in Southwest China, such as Yunnan

University and Guiyang Medical College.13

At the RAC, I discovered several pieces of correspondence between Fei Hsiao-

Tung (Fei Xiaotong, 1910 – 2005) and the RF’s New York office, which

disclose how the RF allocated funds to Chinese universities, the departments

that had received grants, and the universities that they considered should be

allocated a larger share. From 1936 to 1938, Fei studied at the London School

of Economics under the pioneer anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski. After

receiving his Ph.D., Fei taught at the Sociology Department of Yunnan

University and advocated an anthropological (or sociological) investigation

of China's ethnic groups in frontier regions.14 Because of the war, Japan also

tactically used the theory of ethnic self-determination to provoke the

resistance for independence among the ethnic groups in these frontier

regions. Out of hatred of the Japanese, Chinese mainstream academics and

officials criticized Fei’s studies as constituting acts of imperialism and

colonialism that jeopardized the national identity and allegiance of China as

a unified nation. Fei’s theory continued to remain unacceptable in China until

the 1980s when China opened itself to Western scholarship. After 1980, Fei

9

was officially recognized and credited for his expertise about China's ethnic

groups, and he was promoted by the CCP to be one of the top leaders and

representatives of the intellectual community which cooperated with the

government. Of course, he also consciously practiced self-censorship and

brought his own research into line with the CCP’s ideology.

During the time when Fei’s research was marginalized in Chinese academic

circles and he suffered political pressure, funding from the RF was invaluable

to him in 1943-1944. This correspondence I found at RAC provide example

of the significance of the RF funding for the diversified development of

Chinese academics.

VII. The “Cox Committee Investigation”

During my first visit to the RAC in December 2008, I did not see materials

related to the “Cox Committee Investigation.” However, I did mention in my

previous paper about the situation after the Chinese Communist Party

nationalized PUMC in 1950, and I discussed about the “Old PUMC”, CMB,

and RF which were all accused by the CCP of American imperialist “Cultural

Aggression Fortress.”

In this paper, I elaborate on the Chinese faculties working at Old PUMC and

the situation in which they were forced to confess their relationships with

American colleagues. These relationships, whether it was work-related

communications or personal friendship, were subjected to political

inspection by the CCP. Some non-complying faculties were labeled

“worshipping America, pro America and fearing American” and were

removed from their positions.

During this visit at the RAC, I have viewed some materials of the anti-

Communists and conservatives’ activities during the McCarthy era in the

United States around 1952. They censured the RF's international

philanthropic education. Coincidently similar accusations occurred in

Communist China and McCarthy era's American political scene. 15 I am

interested in exploring how the ideal of universal knowledge or “science


without frontiers” encountered narrowmindedness of nationalism and

political antagonism.

Epilogue

The findings presented in this paper are only preliminary, because a

thorough analysis of the materials collected from the RAC is not finished yet.

Among literature on PUMC, CMB and the RF in China, the most important

ones include the books of Mary Brown Bullock, of Mary E. Ferguson, of John

Z. Bowers, and of Qiusha Ma, (She has a U.S., Ph.D. and now teaches in the

East Asian Studies Program at Oberlin College. Her book The Change of

Chin: 100 Years History of Rockefeller Foundation in China is published in

Chinese.)16 They mainly constitute the Westerners’ knowledge of the history

and their works have all been translated into Chinese.

However, to date, there has not been a book on RF and modern China written

by a Chinese indigenous scholar in the field. If we look at it from the

perspective of indigenous scholarship, the focus will not be just from the

perspective of the English world. Instead, I will focus on how the PUMC,

CMB, and RF transplanted and fully developed in China, and how they

integrated with the Chinese social and cultural environment at the time. By

making use of the abundant historical materials at the RAC, as well as many

others collected from other archives and old newspapers in China, I plan to

write a book entitled Modern China and Rockefeller Foundation and (1914-

1966) in Chinese.

I hope to take a more balanced approach by adding a local or indigenous

perspective to the dominant historical narratives in English literature, and

will pay attention not only to the foreigners at the CMB and PUMC, but also

to the Chinese who actively participated in and shaped the programs. As the

Ancient Greek historian Herodotus said, the responsibility of history is to

“prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time, and to

preserve the fame of the important and remarkable by both Greeks and non-

Greeks; Among the matters covered is, in particular, the cause of the

11

hostilities between Greeks and non-Greeks.” A similar dynamic can be

applied here.

The RF's medical education enterprise in China was a multinational

collaboration, launching and organizing the largest and longest-lasting

philanthropic medical education effort of the 20th century. It constituted the

RF's largest single education grant outside the US. This endeavor needs to be

kept in mind, when contemplating the conflicts and tensions in today's Sino-

US relations. We see that there are some close-minded and intolerant people

in both countries who advocate narrow nationalism and xenophobia.

According to Herodotus’s statement, I believe even more that the purpose of

studying this history is to be able to preserve the expectations and efforts of

all those who participated in the RF medical education program in China at

the time. The initial goal of the enterprise was to transcend different cultures,

different ethnicities, and different countries- “promote the welfare of

mankind throughout the world” (1915).

Finally, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the RAC for providing

me with the research grant and opportunity to study the archival records held

there.

1 “Ernest Burton, Harry Pratt Judson, Eri Hulbert, Alonzo Parker, and Albion Small

to Frederick T. Gates, December 31, 1906”, Box 657, Folder 6836, 6838,

6839,6840, RAC: Proposed Foreign Mission Fund, 1906-1909, RAC; Richard J.

Storr, Harper's University: The Beginnings: A History of the University of

Chicago (Chicago, 1966); Catherine Lewerth, Rockefeller Foundation History, vol.

3, pt. VII, "Creation of the China Medical Board (1914-1921)," (Unpublished,

Rockefeller Foundation institutional history, 1949)..

2 Ernest Dewitt Burton, Thomas Chowder Chamberlin, “Report of the Oriental

Educational Commission of the University of Chicago, December 1909,” Box 113,

Folder 831, CMB, Inc., RAC.

3 John S. Baick, “Cracks in the Foundation: Frederick T. Gates, the Rockefeller

Foundation, and the China Medical Board,” The Journal of the Gilded Age and

Progressive Era, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Jan. 2004), pp.59-89.

4 “Roger Greene to Jerome Greene, March 1, 1914, August 4, 1914”; RG 1.1, Series

601, Box 26, Folder 239, RF, RAC; Addresses & papers, dedication

ceremonies and medical conference, Peking Union Medical College, September 15-


22, 1921. Dedication, Peking Union Medical College, 1921, pp.54-120; Peking Union

Medical College, Annual Announcement, 1921, pp.1-15.

5 The Rockefeller Foundation Annual Report, 1925, p.39; “Robert Kho-Seng Lim

(Lin Kesheng) Box 5, Folder 186, CMB, RAC.

6 Mary Brown Bullock, An American Transplant: The Rockefeller Foundation and

Peking Union Medical College (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980)

pp.79-83.

7 “Wu, Hsien” Box16. Card 2, Box39, Folder 10, CMB, Inc., RAC; “Ko-Kuei Chen”

Box 120, Folder 873; “Liu Shih-hao” Box 19, Folder 24, CMB, RAC;” Chang Hsiao-

ch'ien” Box 16, CMB, RAC,” National Hsiang Ya Medical College 1943-1948” Box

96, Folder 683, CMB, Inc.,RAC;” Feng Lan-Chou” Box 113, Folder 821, CMB, RAC;

“Kha-Ti Lim” Box 64, Folder 451, CMB, Inc., RAC.

8 E. C. Meyer. "Distribution and Control of Hookworm Disease in the Mines of

China", Dr. F. C. Yen. "Report No. 7336, Hookworm Infection Survey at the

Pinghsiang Colliery, China from Dec 20-31, 1917" (1917), Box 55, Folder 352, CMB,

Inc. RAC.

9 “China Medical Board-Diary-Goodrich, 1922”, Box 24, Folder 167, CMB, Inc.,

RAC.

10 Diary for the period Feb 14-March 14, “R. S. Greene to, L. C. Goodrich,” April 26,

1923, Box 63, Folder 440, CMB, Inc. RAC.

11 Selskar, M. Gunn, “Report on Visit to China,” Record Group 1.1, series 601, Box

12, Folder 129, RF, RAC,

12 “General China Program, 1937-1940”, RF, Record Group 1.1, series 601D, Box 40,

Folder 493, RAC.

13 “China Program: General: Reports, 1931-1952,” Cox and Reece Investigations,

Box 22, Folder 468, RF, RAC.

14 Robert Winter, “Fei Hsaio Tun and Yunnan University, February 28, 1944.” RG

1.1, Series 601, Box 23, Folder 216, RF, RAC.

15 Cox Resolution-Reece Investigation, 1951-October 1952, RG III, Series 2, Box 40,

Folder 401-405, RF, RAC.

16 Mary E. Ferguson, China Medical Board and Peking Union Medical College: A

Chronicle of Fruitful Collaboration, 1914-1951 (New York: China Medical Board of

New York, 1970); John Z. Bowers, Western Medicine in a Chinese Palace: Peking

Union Medical College, 1917–1951 (New York: Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, 1972).

Mary Brown Bullock, The Oil Prince’s Legacy: Rockefeller Philanthropy in China

(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011). Mary Brown Bullock, An American

Transplant: The Rockefeller Foundation and Peking Union Medical College

13

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), Qiusha Ma (馬秋莎), 《改變中國：

洛克菲勒基金會在華百年》(The Change of Chin: 100 Years History of Rockefeller

Foundation in China) 桂林：廣西師範大學出版社, (Guilin: Guangxi Normal

University Press, 2013).

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